Program overview
Astrophysics is the study of the physical properties, structures, and evolution of celestial bodies in the universe. In simple terms, it uses observations and theoretical models to understand how stars are born and die, how galaxies form, and what the universe has experienced from the Big Bang to the present. Core courses include stellar physics, galactic astronomy, cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, celestial mechanics, observational astrophysics, and data processing. If you are curious about the universe, enjoy math and physics, and don't mind spending a lot of time writing code to analyze data, this major is a great fit. Chinese universities have world-class research facilities in astrophysics, such as the FAST radio telescope (the world's largest single-aperture) at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the LAMOST spectroscopic survey telescope, and space astronomy labs at Nanjing University, the University of Science and Technology of China, and Peking University. As a graduate student, you can directly participate in observation projects using these facilities, and even operate FAST on-site in Guizhou.